


open up my eager eyes

by glitteratiglue



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Bisexual Character, Eavesdropping, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers is a masochist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Gonna make it worth my while?” says the other voice, with a teasing lilt.</p><p>“You got no idea how much I will.” Bucky's voice floats through the drywall, and there are dirty promises and conviction in those words that make Steve suck in a rattling, shallow breath.</p><p>(Steve listens in on Bucky and his date.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	open up my eager eyes

**Author's Note:**

> The idea popped into my head and wouldn't leave until I'd written it: Steve listens in on Bucky screwing a girl, and is simultaneously aroused and pining (eventual Steve and Bucky - don't worry, but with no disrespect to the awesome Annie).  
> Bonus: [this gif](http://comingupforblair.tumblr.com/post/82342976087/we-really-dont-talk-enough-about-the-fact-that).  
> NB: I discovered after I wrote this that Bucky's Stark Expo date was actually called Connie, but I like the name Annie better anyway.

Walking up the several flights of stairs to their apartment, Steve shivers, half from excitement and half from the growing chill in the air.

After he'd left Dr Erskine, heart soaring with possibilities, Steve had thought about trying to find Bucky, but returning to the double date didn't exactly appeal to him, not after Ethel Adamson had tapped her foot at him and rolled her eyes every time he said a word. He'd wandered around the expo for a while, the precious piece of paper marked  _1A_ tucked inside his jacket, smiling at his own secret. Steve was glad that for once, he had a secret, something Bucky didn't know.

Part of Steve wanted to tell him, but then, he couldn't.

The tightness around Bucky's eyes when he'd berated Steve about wanting to join up had played on Steve's mind all the way home. Another yelling match is the last thing Steve wants when he has to entertain the thought of Bucky being gone tomorrow. For all he knows, Bucky is still out dancing, or maybe he's run into the other enlisted guys and they're sinking beers at a local watering hole.

He tries not to think of the fact he just wants Bucky  _here,_ squashes that small hope down where it can't worry at his insides. Fumbling in his pocket for the keys, Steve quietly unlocks the door and lets himself in just as silently.

Instantly, he freezes, because Bucky's not out. He's here, and he's clearly not alone. The thought digs at Steve's chest; it's a sharp stab, the idea Bucky's found something better than Steve's company on his last night.

Shit. Steve grinds his teeth in frustration, thinking, of all the nights to do this, Bucky had to pick this one.

He doesn't do it all that often, but if Bucky does sneak a girl up the stairs, Steve knows the drill: he usually goes to a movie or stays out late, late enough that the girl'll be gone by the time he gets back. Pausing on the threshold, Steve balls his hands into fists, unsure what to do. Checking his watch, he sees that it's only eight. He hadn't thought to wonder whether Bucky would have company in their apartment, but he should have: it's still early.

Looking, Steve eyes the note on top of the couch. He walks over and reads it:  _Sorry, Steve, if you get back first,  I've got company. Hope you don't mind, with my last night and all. See you in the morning._

It's written in Bucky's careless, loopy scrawl, and Steve could be mad, because he's tired after walking home all the way from Queens, but he can't be mad at Bucky, not tonight. Not when this might be his friend's last bit of comfort before his life is measured in long marches and the swift, silent breaths between rifle shots.

Never mind the fact he might be joining him - Steve can't think about that, not now.

There's a giggle from the next room, and Steve zeroes in on the sound. Cocking a head towards the closed bedroom door, he listens without meaning to.

“My last night, y'know,” Bucky is saying, no doubt with that lazy grin on his face.

“Gonna make it worth my while?” says the other voice, with a teasing lilt, and Steve realises with a start that it's Annie from the expo. Beautiful Annie Jones with her dark curls and wide eyes, one of the two girls who wasn't disappointed with her date tonight. Evidently not disappointed at all. She had on this pretty cardigan with flowers, earlier, and in his thoughts, Steve can see it bunched up on the floor, her button-through dress resting on top of it along with Bucky's uniform.

“You got no idea how much I will.” Bucky's voice floats through the drywall, and there are dirty promises and conviction in those words that make Steve suck in a rattling, shallow breath.

Fuck it.

Steve's feet are carrying him towards the door, making sure to step in the right places so he doesn't set off their creaky floorboard.

He stands there, one hand resting on the wall, a couple of inches of chipped wood door separating him from Bucky and his girl, feeling like a complete pervert. But he can't stop.

There are more noises, the click of a belt buckle and softer, wet sounds; they're kissing. Steve has seen Bucky kiss enough girls that his imagination can fill in the blanks for him, can imagine his closed eyes, one hand on Annie's waist and the other tangled in her hair while his lips make her melt against his body.

With embarrassing clarity, Steve feels his cock stir in his pants and tightens that hand on the wall. It's bad enough that he's listening in on something so private, never mind getting turned on by it. But then, it shouldn't surprise him that Bucky clearly knows what he's doing; he's had plenty of practice.

Since their early teens when Bucky had started taking girls out, reeling them in with his boyish smile and good looks, he'd been compelled to offer Steve details. Gentleman didn't tell tales, but Bucky had never been good at keeping secrets and his generous nature meant he wanted to give Steve tips when it came to women. It's not like Steve's ever managed to use them, apart from the odd kiss when the girl pities him enough to do it, but he's got scores of these tips stored up in his head.

He remembers Bucky saying that you gotta look in a woman's eyes, long and intense before you kiss 'em, so they'll be wanting it before you even do it. Also, they like it when you cup a hand round their tits, nice and gentle, and squeeze. The one Steve never forgets - and God, he can't even think of it without blushing - is Bucky telling him what a woman wants most is a guy's head between her thighs, but she'll never ask you for it. You've gotta work her up to it, butterfly kisses down her body until she's yanking at your hair, then you use your mouth on her like a kiss, but softer, more tongue. Listen to what she likes and don't stop for a second until she says your name like a prayer.

At the time, Steve had felt hot inside. He'd shuddered out a breath, tried to keep his features blank and not under any circumstances look at Bucky's mouth and think about what it could do.

Here in the pitch-black, his skin crawls as he hears Annie moan softly. There's the rustle of fabric, then Bucky's quiet laughter in the dark.

In his mind's eye, Steve can see Bucky kissing his way down her neck, that dark hair she'd probably spent time curling before their date all loose around her face, Bucky pulling her slip down and discarding it on the bare floorboards.

There's another sharp gasp - might be a warm hand cupped around her breast - and Bucky says, “Like that, don't ya?”

He hears a light smack. “Sergeant Barnes, anyone ever told you you're full of it?”

And Bucky is laughing, and there's a squeak as the bedsprings shift: perhaps he's moving up, pressing his body up against her, hard and solid.

“Maybe once or twice.” Steve can imagine that rakish smile, the one that makes his stomach twist sometimes when he sees it. “But can you forgive a fella for a little arrogance, now, when it's his last night?”

She laughs. “Oh sure, like you aren't different from any other guy wanting to get his rocks off before shipping out.”

“Might die out there,” Bucky is saying in a wheedling tone. “Don't you wanna leave me with a nice little memory?”

“If you know what's good for you, James, you'll get your ass back up here and kiss me again.”

It's a little strange for Steve to hear her use the name he hasn't called Bucky since the third grade, but for whatever reason, Bucky's got this thing about girls calling him by his real name.

Bucky does what he's told. “Yes, ma'am.”

Steve can hear them, right down to the soft sighs into each other's mouths, can try and imagine the searing warmth of Annie's breasts when they press against Bucky's chest. He slips a hand under his shirt, painfully aware of the throb of his cock inside his pants. Though it's his own touch, the hand splayed out on his stomach makes him gasp, a tiny sound that has him panicking at once.

He needn't have worried; Bucky and Annie are far too absorbed in each other to pay his sounds any mind.

Maybe Bucky is down to just his pants by now, and she's running her palms all over his warm, strong chest: the chest that Steve has seen without a shirt more times than he can count, the chest he's wanted to touch more times than he can count.

Annie giggles, and Steve hears the ping of her bra clasp opening, thinks of Bucky's hands running up her sides to cup her soft breasts.

“Oh James, that's good. Mmm, I -” Annie tails off, there's a wet sucking sound and she makes this high, keening noise.

 _Bucky's_ getting her to make that noise. Steve thinks about that mouth, usually overflowing with dirty jokes and teasing asides, about Bucky's lips locked around a tight, pink nipple and his teeth biting down.

Dipping his hand below the waistband of his pants, he curls fingers around his cock and has to clap his other hand over his mouth to muffle his gasp. It might be his own hand, but when he starts to move, it's so fucking good, the reality of listening to Bucky a thousand times better than any half-baked fantasies his brain has thrown up during many a sleepless night.

Sounds of fabric shifting reach his ears, and his hand stills on his cock. Steve can't believe he's listening. His conscience stings at him, but he can't stop. Not now.

He listens. _Thump, thump, thump._

Clothes are peeled off and tossed on the floor by a boy with an easy smile. There's the whisper of satin being inched down long legs, and Bucky's murmuring things he can't hear in this soft, deep tone that turns Steve's legs to jelly. Lord knows what it's doing to Annie, and he tries to ignore the hot pulse of sudden jealousy in his chest.

She gets to have this and Steve is stuck on the other side of the door, wanting and dreaming.

Awkwardly twisting his wrist, Steve spreads the moisture gathering at the head of his cock, uses his fist to make slow, languorous strokes. He presses his other hand into the wall - and Christ, he needs something to steady himself right now. He's boiling underneath his skin, all thoughts of cold forgotten, that worked up that he might go off any second.

No. Best wait. Not like they're finished yet, anyway.

Steve tenses, listens to the wet pop of Bucky's mouth leaving suction marks in places - maybe on the sharpness of her hipbone, the warmth of her thighs, the flat of her stomach. 

“That's it, good girl. Open up a bit more for me,” he hears Bucky say, quiet and raspy, probably sliding his palms up her thighs, letting her knees fall open for him.

Then Annie cries out “James,” all high and light, and Steve grits his teeth because he just knows Bucky's got his mouth on her.

With a soft pant he can't help making, Steve works himself faster, shuddering as he listens to the damp, lewd sound of Bucky working Annie with his mouth. The image floods into his mind: a dark head nestled between pale thighs, hands wound in the sheets, one leg hooked over Bucky's shoulder.

He tries not to think about the way Bucky described this particular act to him, before, about what it would feel like to do it himself, to absorb yourself in scent and taste and slickness and pleasure. That makes Steve let out a strangled breath, and he stops again to listen carefully.

“Mmm, yeah, yeah,” she's saying, making these tiny whimpering sounds.

Steve's heartbeat pulses in his ears.

“Yeah, don't stop,” and the sounds get sloppier, louder -

Steve squeezes his eyes shut as he hears the bed shake and Annie make this strangled noise that ends with “James.”

It's a fucking prayer of his name, just like Bucky said, and there's the sting again: of wanting Bucky to say  _his_  name like that, sometime.

“Tastes great,” he hears Bucky say thickly, and there's a wet smack as he kisses her and she squeals.

“You kiss your mother with that dirty mouth?”

“Annie, not the time you want me thinking about my ma, seriously.” (Steve chokes off a nervous laugh, at that.)

“Looks like you earned yourself a reward,” Annie says in a voice wrecked with release, and it sends a painful shudder right through Steve, to where his hand's still gripping his cock. He's never heard a woman sound like that, and is torn between wanting to touch her or  _be_  her - because after all, she gets to have Bucky.

The sheets rustle.

Then Bucky grunts into the darkness, and Steve is panting, his shirt sweat-damp and stuck to his skin, feeling his cock protest at the lack of attention. He starts up again, so far beyond shame that he can think of nothing but Bucky, lost in pleasure.

Steve times the thrusts of his own hand in time with the noisy friction of Annie jerking off Bucky. He's heard Bucky before, touching himself when he thinks Steve isn't awake, seen the stack of French postcards Bucky pretends he doesn't keep under his bed - how else would he be able to imagine the details so well? He's making the same sounds he always does, quiet and measured but broken-open at the same time. Those sounds kill Steve, every time.

Bucky groans one more time and chokes out, “Stop.”

Steve stops, too.

“You okay?” she asks, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice.

“Yeah,” Bucky tells her, low and throaty in a way that shoots right to Steve's cock. “Was just thinkin' I'd rather be inside you.”

“Oh.” There's a sharp breath of understanding, then she asks, “Got anything?”

Steve hangs onto that doorframe just to keep standing, his other hand still inside his pants and pressed against taut, overstimulated flesh.

“Yeah.” There's the sound of the bedside drawer opening, paper tearing, then the snap of Bucky putting on a rubber.

The slide of sheets, and Steve can't bear it, between the way his cock is aching in his hand and the sharp breaths he can barely draw from his lungs. There's a bang of metal against the wall, and he would guess Bucky's wrapped his hand around the bedframe.

“You ready for me?” It's asked quiet and tender, and Steve knows that's why Bucky keeps his girls coming back for more; he actually cares and it's not a front. He means it, and the honesty in those soft words near rips Steve apart. "Let's see -"

Annie gasps, and Steve sees her in his mind, arching back on the bed with Bucky's fingers opening her for his touch. He grips his cock tighter, thrusting into his hand and trying not to cry out.

“C'mon James, do it already,” and there's a sharp intake of breath from her, and Bucky swears loudly before he recovers himself. He's inside her, and Steve can  _hear_  it, and he's so turned on and desperate to come he can't even find it in himself to be ashamed.

“Sorry.”

“You're inside me, and you're worried about cursing?”

There's a laugh from Bucky, gentle and giddy as the metal bed squeaks against the floor; he's fucking her.

Steve is listening to Bucky fuck her and his artist's imagination can fill in all the blanks for him, though he almost wishes it couldn't. He strokes himself faster, thinking about Bucky's body in between her open thighs, his backside flexing with each thrust. For one awful, needy moment that he's never, never going to remember, Steve thinks about Bucky stretched out along his back, his cock inside him - the thought nearly makes him come then and there.

He can hear Bucky clear as day, muffling groans against Annie's skin as he pushes into her, the wet sound of him kissing her. The slap of flesh meeting flesh echoes in his ears, filthier than he's ever imagined even in heated, sticky dreams, and everything inside Steve is getting warm, fire-branding hot.

Annie makes that high, sighing sound that means she's probably close - and maybe Bucky's even touching her between her legs, in that place he always says you need to pay attention to on a girl if you wanna get her off - and then Bucky is muttering her name, panting so loud Steve can hear it.

The three of them are on a knife-edge, the party of two and their unknown eavesdropper; the thought of that is more than Steve can take.

With one more thrust, Steve comes, spurting hot all over his hand, trying not to make a sound. Bucky curses and he's there with him, the bedframe shaking a few more times as he finishes. Annie takes a few seconds more, and when Steve thinks about Bucky focusing on her, he can't breathe with jealousy.

Bucky says in a ragged voice, “That's it, baby, come for me,” and Steve feels his body tremble with aftershocks as he listens to Annie cry out Bucky's Christian name, over and over.

The floorboard squeaks under his feet, and there's a sudden throb of fear in Steve's heart, at the idea he might be caught with a come-sticky hand down his pants, right outside the bedroom door.

“You hear something?” It's Annie.

He hears the scratch of metal on wood that means someone is moving on the bed, and Steve is suddenly praying to the Holy Mother that Bucky isn't about to open the door on him.

Steve backs away as fast as he manage without making any noise, wipes his hand on the back of his pants. Where could he hide - behind the couch, or in a cupboard? They're too small even for him.

“Don't think Steve's back yet,” he hears Bucky say, a little louder, and Steve breathes a sigh of relief, heart hammering in his chest. “Nah, can't hear a thing. We're fine.”

“Didn't get in to the army, did he? Poor thing.”

Steve feels the humiliation burn in his cheeks, and he has to get out of here - has to - but he's still listening.

“He's a tough kid" -and something shakes in Bucky's voice, then- "and he took it pretty hard. But he'll be alright.”

“My brother's out there, now. We ain't heard from him in weeks, and well - you wonder.”

There's silence for a moment, and Steve feels a burst of compassion for Annie, with chagrin that he's listened in on what was obviously a much needed moment of comfort for her, too.

“Joe, right? Couple of years above me at school; I remember. When I was doing my NCO training at Camp McCoy, the fellas there used to talk about how their letters got lost, delayed. Bet you'll get one soon.”

It was a kind thing to say, and maybe Annie wanted to believe it. Maybe Steve would want to believe that too when Bucky was gone.

“Can't stay, I'm afraid.” Steve hears Annie sigh. “Supposed to be at a friend's, and my mother'll rap my knuckles if she thinks I've been out bein' free with my favours like this.”

He can imagine Bucky's smile in the darkness. “Mothers, eh? Like anything this good could ever be wrong.”

“Well, that's what I say, anyway,” Annie agrees. “Thanks for a great time, James.”

“Anytime.” Bucky pauses. “Well, if I get some leave sometime, it might be nice.” It's a pleasant fantasy, nothing more; they both must know the chances of Bucky making his way back here before the war's over are zero to slim.

Steve aches inside, at that, because if he's shared everything else with them, this part is just for Bucky and Annie, the private lies that two people tell themselves during wartime in order to get through it.

“Sure, sometime. _”_ Annie's laugh is knowing and without rancour; she's certainly one cool, classy dame. If he's honest, Steve's half torn between wanting her himself, and wanting to watch her with Bucky, and well - just wanting Bucky, period.

Steve hears the thud of her feet hit the floor; he's never got out of a room so fast. He doesn't stop running until he gets to a nearby alleyway and stands there, feeling his chest getting tight with the exertion.

When he gets back and slips into the bedroom, Bucky is already asleep, one arm thrown on top of the quilt and breathing evenly. He's opened the window but Steve can still smell the reek of sex in the air, can feel the memory prickling on his skin.

He wakes in the morning to find an empty bed, newly-washed sheets hanging over the stoop outside, and Bucky gone, with another note.

_Didn't want to wake you. I'll miss you, Stevie._

* * *

Steve looks up as a shadow falls across his sketchbook, finding sharp blue eyes fixed on his face. He'd woken from a nightmare, and lately had found the best way for him to calm down was to go into the next room and curl up on the couch with pencil and paper.

“Hey,” Bucky says, sinking down on the couch beside him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just can't sleep.” Steve's hand puts down the book and finds its way to Bucky's metal one, the way it often does, his stubborn way of reminding Bucky that he'll never forget it's part of him.

Sometimes Bucky woke, too, with his own bad memories, and they didn't usually intrude upon each other's space during those times. But tonight, Steve welcomes the touch.

“Me neither,” Bucky says, and that's when Steve notices his nervous tell. Bucky's licking his lips in that way he used to do back when they were kids and he was about to confess to something.

Steve inclines his head. “Remembered something else?”

Last time, it was the day Steve's mother had caught him and Bucky hurling homemade water balloons off the roof: they'd both had bruises on their knuckles for a week after.

“Annie Jones.”

At that, Steve studies the graphite smudges on his fingers, trying to ignore the way his heart's suddenly beating fast. “Oh, your date from the expo? She seemed like a nice girl. Better than Ethel Adamson, anyway.”

(Maybe it had been more than seventy years, but Steve still didn't like rude people. Manners cost nothing, as his ma always used to say.)

There's no way Steve can look at Bucky right now without blushing to the tips of his ears, because that night is etched on his memory like a brand.

Bucky bursts out laughing and puts his face in his hands, long hair falling into his eyes. “Oh God, Steve, I can't believe I'm telling you this, but...I knew you were listening.”

“Fuck.” Steve's breath catches - and hadn't some part of him always known that, somewhere deep down?

“That's not all,” Bucky continues, raising his head to meet Steve's gaze. “I liked it, too, dirty boy that I was back then.”

At that, Steve rolls his eyes, because it's not like that's changed; Bucky's still a dirty boy, with a butter-wouldn't-melt grin and a kiss that turns him inside out.

“Yeah, I know what you're gonna say,” Bucky says, glaring at him. “Not playing fair.”

To shut him up, Steve wraps a hand around his neck and kisses him, slow and deep. When he pulls back, Bucky is laughing again, but he's a little breathless.

“The thought of you listening, rubbing one out over us; I don't think I've ever been so turned on in my life.” Bucky groans. “What a memory for a man to take to the front. Jerked off to it more than a few times.”

“That's 'cause I had your French postcards,” Steve tells him, a mischievous look in his eyes, and Bucky starts to inch a hand up his thigh. “Not like I didn't do the same, anyway.”

“Damn.” Bucky raises an eyebrow, both at the memory and the thought of Steve making use of it. “Think we need to have a look for those postcards on eBay.”

“Good thing I don't get jealous of all your fantasy women,” Steve says with a half-smile.

Bucky huffs, and his hand moves higher to palm at Steve's cock through his pants, teasing him with slow circles of his fingers.

“Mmm.” Steve shoots a warning look at Bucky, who just keeps right on going. “Distracting me isn't gonna work, Barnes.”

“Oh, please, Rogers. It's not like you were a monk in the two years you knew I was gone. Sharon, Marie, Rebecca - and let's not forget Kristen from statistics. The poor woman still near-faints every time she sees you in the hallway.”

“Um,  _Natasha,”_ Steve interjects, trying to ignore the warmth curling around his spine at the touch on his cock, because he just knows that one's gonna shut Bucky the hell up.

Bucky sighs, pausing. “Never gonna let that one go, are you? Shame you were all frozen back then or maybe you could have listened to the two of us as well. Or watched. Romanoff's not shy.” He grins, wicked and wide.

Steve groans. “Oh _God,_ I don't wanna know.”

Natasha had picked up on Steve's awkwardness about the situation weeks ago, and would casually slip references to Bucky's prowess in bed into the conversation whenever she got the chance: Steve hated it.

“Don't you know a gentleman never kisses and tells?” That shit-eating grin again; Steve always feels the faint urge to kick (or kiss) Bucky whenever he does that.

Steve tries to move away from him, but the metal hand is pressed against his side and he realises he doesn't want to move, ever.

“Maybe I still like dames, fair. But I like you best,” Steve says, shifting into the warmth of his touch, and feels Bucky laugh against him.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Bucky tells him in a quiet voice, looking away. "Should have said goodbye, especially after that. I just couldn't face it, not with you. Probably would have turned into a weeping wreck all over the sidewalk."

"Forget it," Steve says, and he means it, at last. "I should have had the courage to say something, all those months we had together in the war."

Bucky shrugs. "It's not like I did, either. You know, I looked up Annie yesterday,” he adds casually, now unzipping Steve's pants. “She died in '87 - breast cancer, but it seems like she had a good life. Two kids, husband, worked as a bank manager. Her brother Joe died in the war, not long after I did. Pneumonia.”

“We were lucky.”

“Yeah.” There's a flash of something painful in Bucky's eyes as he agrees, and Steve knows, understands without Bucky ever saying anything that he needs to focus on something else right now.

He lets him.

“God, wasn't it fucking hot, though?” Bucky says in a rush, swallowing back a gasp. “Get hard just thinking about it - and you.”

Closing his eyes as Bucky sinks to his knees before him, Steve has to agree.

Yes, it absolutely was.

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just porn. I blame Sebastian Stan's sinfully sexy mouth for the whole thing.
> 
> Title pinched from _The Killers_.


End file.
